Trauma
by See Jane Write
Summary: After Susan's departure, Mark does not want to go back to work. He only returns once he hears that her train was in an accident. SusanMark. Chapter Two up.
1. Chapter 1

Trauma

Summary: After Susan's departure, Mark does not want to go back to work. He only returns once he hears that her train was in an accident. Susan/Mark

Disclaimer: I do not own anything, and my lawyer friend is on maternity leave.

Mark Greene kept walking through the cold harsh streets of Chicago. He had no real place to go to. What did it matter? He lost the one person for whom he truly cared. Susan was gone. She had gotten on that train, and she was probably well on her way to Phoenix by this point.

He groaned. _Why did I have to keep my feelings to myself? If I had told her earlier, she might have stayed._ He groaned again. There was nothing that would make him feel better about the whole situation. It was hell. In a way, it was worse than when Jen had given him the divorce papers or when she had announced she was getting remarried. Those times he could still count on Susan to be there for him. Now she was gone, and he was left all alone.

What was the point of going on with life, he wondered as he kept walking along the streets. The temperature was only dropping, but he did not care. He was still supposed to be on shift for the next five and a half hours, but he did not care. Nothing at all mattered anymore. He felt awful inside.

He glanced overhead at the hospital's helicopter flying towards County. Without a doubt he would be paged momentarily. He did not care. He was suffering a fate worse than death. Why should someone else in Chicago get better treatment? Why should he be required to give it to them?

Seconds later he could feel his pager vibrating. He glanced down and sure enough, someone at County was paging him. He ignored it and kept walking.

How could he let something like this happen? Why was he so afraid to tell Susan how he felt? Was it his fear of rejection? Nothing was worse than this. This was the ultimate rejection. The woman he loved was on a train to Phoenix, Arizona, while he was stuck in Chicago being paged again by his work where he met her in the first place. He groaned. "I love the whole insult to injury thing," he muttered as he walked over to the pay phone. He pulled out a quarter then dialed quickly.

"Yea, this is Mark Greene. Someone paged me twice," he said irritably.

"Mark," came Carol Hathaway's rushed reply. "Look, we need you back in the ER NOW!"

Mark shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, I'm not going back," he told her. "I can't." Luckily for the both of them he was managing his words without crying.

"No, Mark, we NEED you," Carol told him. "And I think you need to be here," she added.

Mark shook his head once more. He could hear the commotion in the background. Someone was asking about an ambulance's ETA, which was about twenty minutes. Jerry was informing Kerry Weaver about the accident.

"We need to clear both traumas," Jerry was saying. "It's bad. Drunk truck driver was completely not paying attention. From what I hear, he crashed into a train. It's on the news."

Mark's face paled. "Carol," he stated. He heard nothing. "Carol, talk to me," he commanded. "I know you're still there. What did I just hear?"

"Mark, you need to get down here ASAP," Carol stated with no emotion in her voice. Her eyes were focused on the one female body who had been flown in via helicopter.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Carol!" Mark shouted into the phone. "CAROL!" It was useless. He was not going to get another word out of the nurse. He placed the phone down and just started running to County. He had to get there as quickly as he possibly could. His heart was pounding, but he ignored it. He would not stop running until he was back at work.

He had to stop. He was out of breath. There was no way he could make it all the way back there without passing out. He needed a taxi or something. He scanned the streets, but he could not find any. He started walking. It would not be as fast as running, but it would hopefully get him there eventually.

"Hey," came a female's voice from a car. Mark turned his head slightly and noticed that the car was pulling over towards the road. "Do you need a ride?" the mystery woman asked.

Mark stood there half in shock as he wondered if he could trust this woman. He had never met her before, but that really did not matter to him. All that mattered was that he get across town to County. "Yes, County General Hospital, please," he said as he crawled into the backseat.

"Not a problem," the woman stated as she floored the accelerator and started speeding down the road.

Mark watched as the familiar sights passed by him. He had never noticed them carefully before, and he did not notice them now. All he cared about was Susan. It had to be her train, he figured. Otherwise Carol would not have been so secretive about the information. On the other hand, he had no way to be certain of that. Unless…

"Would you mind if I turned on the news?" Mark asked the driver.

She shook her head. "Not at all," she responded as she made a quick left. She turned to face Mark briefly. "Is this about the train crash?" she asked.

"Hopefully not," Mark responded as he turned her car radio on and dialed it to the news station.

_"The train left Union Station at four…"_

"Damn it!" Mark yelled as he turned the radio off. "Pardon my language, but damn it!" he said again. Tears of sadness and anger filled in his eyes. Whatever was going on at County was not good, and he had a feeling that he did not want to be there at all.

"Why?" he wondered aloud. "Why that train? Why Susan's train? I loved her, and I wanted her to stay in Chicago, but not in the sense that she would be a corpse," he muttered angrily. "It's not fair."

He had to force himself not to cry. He could not know what exactly was going on at County until he arrived there. Carol could just have been saying those things to get him there because they were swamped. If that was the case, he would hurt her later, but he did not know.

"Here you are," the woman said as she pulled into the ambulance bay. "And good luck with your girlfriend," she added.

Mark did not even bother to tell her Susan was not his girlfriend. What did it matter to that woman anyway? Mark was never going to see her in his life anyway. Instead he rushed into the hospital. "What's going on? Where's Carol? Where's Kerry? Where's Doug?" he demanded.

"Trauma One," Jerry answered. "Trauma One, and Trauma Two," he added. "You're needed in One if you can handle it."

"Handle it?" Mark asked. "What do you mean handle it? What's there to handle?"

Lydia walked past him tragically as she motioned for him to follow her back to the trauma room. "Mark, it's Dr. Lewis," she said softly.


End file.
